Wall Street Titan (Wall Street Titan #1) - Anna Zaires Page 0,81

like it’s being squeezed in a vise.

“He’ll be back, right?” I ask Queen Elizabeth, and she gives me the cat equivalent of a shrug—a blank stare, followed by a tiny tail swish.

I sigh and walk over to my desk. I’m imagining this, I’m sure, but for a moment there, it seemed as if Marcus had been upset with me… as if I’d done something wrong. But that’s silly. He got bad news from work, that’s all. Whatever’s going on at his fund has nothing to do with me. The only thing I can think of as far as something I could’ve done is telling him I’m too sore to have even more sex.

Wait a sec.

Is that it?

Did I offend him by refusing his advances?

No, that doesn’t seem right. Marcus is too confident, too much of a man to have such a fragile ego. It is, however, feasible that with the possibility of more sex off the table, he didn’t see the point in staying.

But no. There was that phone call. He didn’t make it up. I saw his face; the news he got really was bad. There might be hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the line—tens of millions, for all I know. It’s ridiculous to imagine he’d even be thinking about me during such a critical time; most likely, he seemed short because he was worried about the bad trade.

In any case, he said he’ll call later, so I’m sure I’ll hear from him tonight. Or if not tonight, tomorrow.

In the meantime, I should use this opportunity to catch up on my editing.

I’m already a weekend behind schedule as is.

46

Marcus

Bleary-eyed, I scrub my palm over my face and glance at the clock.

3:05 a.m.

We’ve been at it for over twelve hours.

Getting up, I toss my disposable coffee cup into the trash and look around the glass-walled conference room. Jarrod and all of my portfolio managers are here, sitting around the long rectangular table surrounded by piles of reports. Like me, they’ve been going over the investment ideas the analysts have been bringing in, trying to figure out how we can make up a $700 million loss during a holiday-shortened week.

If we’re still in the hole come November 30th, we’ll lock in this month’s underperformance, and it’s going to be a permanent black mark on the fund’s record—not to mention, a source of embarrassment at the upcoming Alpha Zone conference.

So far, there are a number of promising short-term ideas, but nothing big enough to plug a $700 million hole. And odds are, we’re not going to find that gem tonight.

I slap my palm on the table, and everyone snaps to attention.

“Enough,” I say. “Everyone, go home. We’ll resume this first thing in the morning.”

I don’t want their judgment compromised by lack of sleep.

It’s bad enough I’ve let my dick do my thinking for me.

“See you back here at seven?” Jarrod says, walking by me, and I nod. It wouldn’t hurt to catch up with my CIO before the PMs pile in. He’s only twenty-seven, but he has a knack for seeing the big picture, same as I do. One day soon, he’s going to strike out on his own, but until then, I’ve got his clever brain to bounce ideas off of.

Everyone files out of the conference room, and I follow, a tension headache squeezing my temples as I close the door behind us. On the main floor, the analysts are hunched over their computers, crunching numbers and sorting through data, searching for something to bring to their PMs.

I’m tempted to send them home too, but since they don’t make the decisions, being clear-headed is less crucial for them. I decide to leave it up to the individual PMs and head out, my headache worsening with every step I take.

It takes less than twenty minutes to get home—traffic is nonexistent at this hour—and as I fall into bed, my thoughts turn to Emma for the fiftieth time this night. She’s probably long asleep by now. I can picture her curled up with her cats in her short, narrow bed, her wild red curls spread over the pillow and her lush little body barely covered by the pair of panties and a tank top that she wears in place of pajamas. Even with the headache beating at me, the image tightens my groin and makes warmth curl in my chest.

I’d give anything to hold her right now.

Anything at all.

My hand is already reaching for my phone when I realize